Vacant Lots in Abandoned Minds
by Carlier36
Summary: Jeremy watches as Monroe spirals even further out of control after the events in his hometown. Has Emma's death finally pushed him too far? Set after 1.15 "Home." Elements of dub-con.


Disclaimer: I do not own Revolution nor am I associated with any of the cast or crew.

**Vacant Lots of an Abandoned Mind**

"Power-lust is a weed that grows only in the vacant lots of an abandoned mind. "  
― Ayn Rand, _Atlas Shrugged_

The helicopter back to Philadelphia was louder and more jarring than anything had been in the last fifteen years but General Monroe didn't seem to notice. His eyes were glazed with shock and sorrow, a look Jeremy wasn't entirely comfortable with, given the general's growing unpredictability. The shadowy silhouette of former Independence Hall was in sight when he slapped a hand against Monroe's knee, pasting on a wayward smile.

"We'll get you sewn right up, sir, not a problem. And then maybe you'd be up for some distractions," Jeremy nodded to the city rising quickly up to meet them as the helicopter landed. It was late and the streets were mostly empty but candles could be found burning in the more colorful districts, he was sure.

Monroe shook his head, barking a short, "No."

Anyone else might have attributed his abruptness to the pain but Jeremy knew better. The men had dragged him sobbing and bellowing away from that redhead's limp body as she bled into the dirt. The general wasn't exactly transparent about his past but the way he had ached to touch her from the moment she stepped up onto that goddamn gazebo had been clear as a bottle of vodka.

Jeremy pressed his lips together in a begrudging defeat, leaning forward to give orders to the pilot as they set down in a field a few blocks from the Hall. Monroe was loaded onto a cloth stretcher and hauled into the building with a quickly constructed guard gathered around him.

The doctor was roused from his sleep and though his white coat was hastily thrown on and his glasses sat crooked on his nose, he knew better than to grumble. Monroe hissed through gritted teeth but Jeremy only shoved a bottle of whiskey into his bloody hand.

"Better than morphine."

Jeremy wasn't sure which of them actually said it but it sounded a lot like the ghost of Miles that always seemed to linger in Independence Hall. A chill born of superstition and Monroe's paranoia ran down his spine and he moved to make his excuses as soon as the doctor began swathing his torso in white bandages.

"Changed my mind." The words came, slightly slurred, just as he reached the door. Jeremy allowed himself the minutest wince before turning around.

"Yes, sir?"

"Suddenly feeling up for a distraction." Monroe coughed, pushing himself up in spite of the doctor's weak protests. "A redhead."

He paused for a moment before nodding in agreement. "Certainly, sir."

A flicker of regret passed over Jeremy's face as he led a redhead in a slim dark blue dress down the hall, his fingers wrapped loosely around her upper arm as if she might bolt at any moment. He swung open one of the double doors, ushering her inside. By the time she glanced back to thank him, a sugary _next time, Captain Baker _on her tongue, he was already closing the door in apparent resignation.

Monroe sat on the edge of his desk, a glass of whiskey dangling from one hand and a strip of gauzy white wrapped around his otherwise bare chest.

"General."

His eyes were icier even than she'd been told by the girls that normally kept his bed warm and she shivered slightly, the weight of the bag of diamonds she'd been paid with suddenly seeming not quite as impressive as before.

He sipped at his glass as she stood there, red curls resting on squared shoulders and eyes sharp and unwavering, a shade darker than his own. Pushing himself off the desk, Monroe walked across the room, one warbling footstep after another until he stood inches from her. She was tall, her eyes falling on his mouth as he lifted one hand, thumb resting on her painted bottom lip.

He stood in front of her long enough that her shoulders started to lose their tension and she leaned forward, eyes open wide as she sought his lips. At the last moment he shifted away, stepping behind her so she sucked in a gasp, though her surprise quickly dissolved at the touch of his fingers on her neck, brushing the red curls aside and tugging on the ends of the narrow satin knots on her dress.

One knot gave way, the dress slipping down, baring her shoulder and the curve of her breast. He moved to the other shoulder to tug the knot there loose as well and she shrugged, midnight blue fabric pooling around her feet with a whisper that revealed nothing underneath. His hand, large and covered in scars, skimmed around her waist as he pulled her flush against him, the glass of whiskey in his free hand cold and damp against her breast and its perspiration dripping down over her skin. She leaned into him, fingers reaching up to tangle in his curly hair as he buried his face in her neck, drawing in a deep breath of her clean, soap-scented skin.

When Captain Baker had arrived at the front door that evening looking for a stoic redhead, preferably with blue eyes, she had borrowed a rare pair of color contacts from one of the girls and spared her last shred of precious soap. After all, what was soap next to diamonds and Independence Hall?

Monroe seemed to approve as he tugged on her hair, tipping her head back against his shoulder and tracing her jaw with his mouth, the graze of his tongue over her pulse point drawing a reedy moan from her. Twisting in his arms, she caught his lips in her own, tasted alcohol and the copper tang of blood and tears. "_General-_"

His grip tightened almost painfully in her hair and she could hear the grinding of his teeth. "Bass. It's Bass."

She blinked, contacts stinging her eyes, before the corner of her mouth lifted in a twisted idea of a smile. "_Bass_." Her fingers curled at the curve of his neck, one hand brushing over the deceptively stark bandage on his chest and lower, over the hard lines of him beneath his trousers, as she kissed him, firmer and deeper so her teeth scraped over his lip.

He let her in with a groan, knee pushing between her bare thighs, the glass still clutched in his hand pressed up against the small of her back. The rattling of the nearly-melted ice echoed her shiver of arousal in the cool room, the fireplace in the corner burnt down to little more than embers.

Her fingers teased the curls at the nape of his neck, arm wrapping around him and breasts brushing against his chest, and for a moment she thought she had his undivided attention: his tongue was in her mouth and his free hand drifted down the crevasse in the center of her back, fingertips rough and calloused. It wasn't until she tasted saltwater in his kiss that she realized her mistake, recognized the fierceness in his grip for what it was.

Monroe shoved her away, sent her stumbling back unsteady on salvaged heels, tears streaked down his face so he looked like a lost little boy if only for a moment. "How could you?" he demanded, rough voice a vicious contrast to the pain and sorrow in his eyes. "How could you never tell me? How could you _leave_, Emma?"

His face twisted into something cruel and he threw the glass hard against the wall, oblivious or impervious to her flinch as it shattered, shards of glass raining down on the floor. Rounding on her, Monroe grabbed her shoulders and shook her, eyes glazed over with a kind of savagery she couldn't identify, even after many long years' experience with the depravity of men. "You said you _loved _me."

"I'm not her," she murmured, faking knowledge of his pain and this girl that broke his heart, hands grasped tight on the edge of the desk. "I'm not Emma, Bass."

He didn't seem to hear her, only turned abruptly lachrymose, his whiskey-infused moods enough to give them both whiplash as he cupped her cheek in his hand, sucking in a ragged breath. "I miss you," he whispered, burying his face in her hair. "Come back, Emma, please. Anything, anything you want, just come back."

His tears streamed over her skin, running in rivulets over her collarbone as she raised a hesitant hand to the back of his neck. This wasn't a part she'd expected to play tonight but he clung to her naked body, her legs spread around his hips and that, that was something she knew how to deal with. "Shh, it's okay," she murmured, lips brushing the delicate skin just in front of his ear, two days of stubble scratching her. "You're all right, Bass. Everything will be all right."

Reaching one hand between them, she flicked open the button on his pants and slid her fingers inside, curling around him. He groaned quietly into her shoulder and she felt him harden, felt his weight press her more firmly onto the desk. "That's it, just relax." Pushing his pants down slightly so they just clung to his hips, she stroked her hand over him slow and lingering until he could take it no longer. Monroe pushed her flat on the desk, the cold point of an envelope opener pressing ineptly against her spine, and dragged her hips to his.

Their gasps mingled as he pressed inside her inch by inch, mouth sealed to her skin, his tongue laving over her throat and breast as though she were the most expensive delicacy on his table, when in fact the desk beneath them had probably cost more than one night with her. Her fingers curled in his hair, holding his head between her breasts as he thrust inside her, long, slow strokes that turned them both inside out. She tightened her legs around him, the points of her heels digging into his thighs and her body contracting on him. Monroe drew a shaky breath against her skin, his whispered, "_Emma_," not lost on her.

She wrapped her arms tighter around him, her eyes slammed shut. "It isn't Emma, Bass. She isn't here. I'm not her."

Monroe's fingers clenched on her hips, digging deep into her flesh as he lifted his head. Hooking her leg higher on his hip, he moved one hand up to hold her shoulder to the wooden desk as he thrust faster, sharper. "Of course you aren't her," he growled. "She's _dead_. He _killed _her. He never deserved her. She should have been with me. She should have been _mine _and everything would be different."

Running her fingers through his hair as he slammed inside her, she shook her head. "We can't know what could have been. We aren't meant to know."

"A philosopher-whore. Take away the electricity and suddenly everybody's a goddamn Nietzsche." He barked a short laugh, losing his rhythm with an unflattering grunt as he came inside her, hot and sticky. She made a mental note to demand an extra half-ounce of diamonds from Captain Baker for the potential inconvenience.

Straightening between her thighs, he pulled out of her slick body, teeth grinding. "I don't have to know what could have been. If she had been mine, none of this would have happened. Miles would still be here with me and we'd all be together and Charlotte and Rachel wouldn't have been able to wreck everything."

He looked no less bitter than when she'd arrived but he did look wrung out and though he hadn't been the gentleman she'd always been told, leaving her bruised and unsatisfied, she had to at least admire her handiwork. Tossing her a handkerchief, Monroe wandered to the fireplace without bothering to clean himself up and lifted an oddly-shaped poker to stir the embers.

"I may be a whore but I know more than most about people and what they want and I can tell you that's an awful lot to put on one woman. This Emma of yours, you don't know that she could have fixed everything. There's always a variable we don't consider when we try to speculate."

His smile was cold but genuine, eyes crinkling. "You don't talk like a whore."

Wiping the handkerchief along her sticky thighs, she pushed herself up on one hand, feet dangling off the desk, an ironic smirk tugging at her lips. "I was a psychiatrist, before the Blackout."

"Isn't that the way of it? Six billion lives and in the blink of an eye none of them turned out the way we thought they would." Monroe lifted the poker, inspecting the flat, glowing end. "You remind me of her, you know. You were supposed to." He glanced over at her, icy blue eyes narrowed. "She was a redhead."

"I figured. I'm sorry you lost her."

"So am I. I should have done more, more to keep her, more to protect her. Instead I put her right in harm's way. I should have made her mine a long time ago." Monroe turned towards her, the iron poker clutched tight in his hand. "Consider yourself my second chance to do it right, doc."

She scuttled back on the desk a few inches, eyeing the poker in his hand. "If you intend to do something with that, it's going to cost you a hell of a lot extra."

"Don't worry. It only hurts for a minute." His smirk was far more terrifying than his earlier anger had been as he wrapped his free hand beneath her knee and yanked her towards him, spreading her legs over the edge of the desk.

"No, no, no, no. No, this isn't what I signed up for. No, Bass, I- You can't-" She caught the glowing outline of the Monroe Republic symbol on the end of the poker just before it seared into the tender flesh of her inner thigh.

A shriek, a scream, escaped her and tears sprang to her eyes before she could shove her hand in her mouth, biting down on her knuckles. When he pulled the poker away a few seconds later, there was a red, raw wound on her thigh and pain radiating through her whole left side. He didn't seem to notice though, the poker clattering to the floor as he dropped to his knees, breathing in her scent. "Yes, this would have been right," he whispered, breath warm. "She should have been mine. I should have made her mine."

Leaning closer, he drew his tongue over her center and she quaked against him, hazy confusion flooding her at the sharp stabs of agony and arousal. "What-what would she think of this? What would Emma say if she could see you cause such pain?"

Monroe lifted his head, meeting her eyes over the slim, curving expanse of her body. "It's too late to fix that. You don't know what it's like. Some things you can never come back from," he murmured, drawing a line from the heat between her legs up over her stomach.

"No, no it isn't." She shook her head, jaw clenched against the dulling pain so her words came out stilted. "Maybe you're- seeing it all wrong. Maybe- she had to die, so you could- see yourself."

He stilled against her, hands clenching at her waist. "Pardon me?" The low-slung edge of his pants grazed her fresh injury and she cried out, one hand flying up to grip his arm.

"Maybe she had to die," she whispered again, eyes squeezing shut.

Monroe tore away from her, running a hand over his face, wiping the traces of her off his mouth. "How dare you think you know me," he spat out, voice low and rough. "Maybe Emma _did_ have to die so I could see the world for what it really is. Whores and traitors. She was the last good thing in this world and she died in the street like an animal."

Before she had a chance for a useless protest, he grabbed the handgun off the mantelpiece and fired, a single bullet straight through her heart. Sprawled on his desk, she made for a raunchy mirror image of Emma, dead in his arms.

The gunshot rang through the hall outside and Jeremy's eyes closed of their own accord, a silent beg for forgiveness of the terrible things they had done, the terrible things he stood by and let one of his oldest friends do every day. The rookie beside him leapt to attention, gun cocked as he reached for the door handle, but Jeremy slapped a hand around his wrist, eyes cracking open. "The general's fine, private. Stand down."

"But, sir, the gunshot. How do you know?"

Jeremy's eyebrows lifted, jaw tightening. "Did you just question your commanding officer?"

The boy, not more than nineteen, blanched, swallowing hard. "Uh, no. No, sir. My apologies, sir."

They had no more than returned to their silent guard when the double doors burst open and Monroe marched out, tossing a small black bag at Jeremy as he passed. "Clean this up," he ordered without sparing either of them a glance.

Jeremy caught the bag against his chest, holding it up to the oil lamp burning on the wall, though he already knew what it was: the two ounces of diamonds the girl had been paid in. Twisting to look through the doorway, he clenched his free hand into a fist and wished he were less prepared for the sight that greeted him.

The girl lay naked across Monroe's desk beside the handgun, eyes open and blank and the brand red and raw on her spread thigh. Blood oozed from the gaping hole in her chest, seeping over her breasts and onto the desk.

The rookie lost his supper on his boots.

Jeremy had to wonder what it was like to still feel shock or horror or compassion. He shoved the bag of diamonds into the boy's hand. "Get out of here. Take this to the treasury."

He mumbled a 'yes, sir' and a 'thank you, sir' and all but ran from the room.

Standing there in the open doorway, the doorway to a kind of corruption even he hadn't conceived of before, Jeremy saw the end, saw it all go up in smoke and fire and screams. It was then that he knew this redheaded girl, this woman who's life had doubtless been more cruel and difficult than he could imagine, was only the beginning.


End file.
